[Redcarmoose]

This song may be important only for myself, though I’m sure many know of it. In 1981 “The Cure” had only had limited commercial success. They would later go on to become amazingly famous. Though here you find them in what may be called a transition period. Though for me their second, third and forth albums would be my favorite. They really didn’t get popular until years later.

This as a music genre would be considered Post-Punk/New-Wave. Though here we see a band emerging with studio effects, not ever needed with their early stuff. So it’s a progression, but not the pop sound that eventually moved “The Cure” to success. Both the album Faith (this one) and the album Seventeen Seconds are in many ways twins. They can go together as a package and share a complete aesthetic vision. Also due to The Cure not yet finding American stardom.....the imports were packaged together as a 2X US LP pressing.

The song “A Forest” ended being the commercial breakthrough (in the 2LP set) for the band, generally regarded as their first hit.

With “All Cats Are Grey” we find The Cure at their most stoic and peaceful. Truly the antithesis of punk energy. It’s an introspective dreamlike reverb laden affair, which comes off almost as happenstance.


But after close attention, the clockworks of this masterpiece start to reveal themselves. The fact that the song leads up to a piano apex shows complete understanding of composition skill and pace. Robert Smith’s planned delayed vocal includes both a poetic word choice and thoughtful stance.

Truly most people hearing this (in it’s day) had no idea of the bands influences; it was as unique and one-off as it sounds now. And not only is/was the song separate from youth music, but each song was separate from themselves on the double LP. Each song contained both a slighly similar sound but differentiated by both instrument choice and studio effects.

Of all the musical subgenres at the time, “Faith” fills no spot. It ends as it started, a novelty of both songwriting and recording skill.

In so many ways, a revisited listen shows this music has not aged or dated with time. Today it’s still a marvel of complex yet simplistic production. Throughout the album we hear early phase-shifted acoustic guitars as well and amazingly clear electric bass and synth-keys. Somehow none of the sound comes off as dated like many other recordings from 1980-1981? Why this is....I can only guess, but it reconfirmed this 2X album as a timeless classic!

Cheers!

 

[Steve999]

That's super-interesting. I have never listened intently to Rush before. It's a lot like jazz fusion except they are using rock chords (straight-up major and minor chords instead of chords with additional tones in them). It took me over to my piano to see what the heck was going on. They didn't forget where they were going on this occasion, it's very intentionally and carefully structured. It starts out with the guitar solo, if I remember right, shifting around from A minor to A major and finally resolving in a relaxed kind of shimmering C major for a while, all in 4/4 time, and then a rock type shifting from A major to A minor repeatedly in 4/4, and then they kind of jam over the same chords . . . in 7/8 time!! for a while, A major to A minor every two measures, and it goes without saying the soloing is incredible, as are the bass and drums, and then there is some chromiticism, some straight chromatic runs down from A to an octave down to A, some rocking out in A minor, moving between 4/4 and 7/8, some crazy unison stuff going on between the bass and the guitar, and then we are back into 4/4, shifting between A major and A minor, rocking out in 4/4 in A major and A minor, then there is some unison chromatic lines and it goes into the A major 7/8 motif and then some tight unison playing and finally ending on a straight chromatic run from A down to an octave down to A, and then an abrubt drum and bass thing and an abrupt end on A major. I assure you nobody forgot where they were going! They just went to a lot of wild places! I have never really listened to Rush before, that was super-interesting. Part of the music and the effect is definitely the meticulous execution and the unorthodox twists and turns on the way. And wow do they get around on their instruments!

I'll have to take some time to listen to the other Rush tracks. I started with this one since you said it was the one to break all of the other ones.

The rush tune that broke all further rush tunes. After creating this monster the band swore they would never do this again. At times they would forget where they are and where they were going..

 

[Steve999]

When I hear someone sound so good with an acoustic guitar and singing with no reverb and such great expressiveness, that's breathtaking, that's talent beyond words. That's just him, period. And the band keeps a straight face but wow the feeling is just hard to describe, I'm like what is going on between your ears! I'm just about to jump out of my chair! The guitarist is tripping on cool! The drummer is not overplaying, and he is so expressive, the bass lines are so melodic. And on Use Me the keyboard is restrained but wacked out beyond words, perfect. And the background riff between the guitar and the keyboard is unforgettable. And great magnificent messages in the music. Eternal!

Here's some songs that fit the Bill...love the way he conveys the emotion!

 

[rule42]

Hey there @Redcarmoose and thanks for that. I thought I was alone with this track and album so it's lovely to find a kindred soul. Standout track from their best album for me too and you describe it way better than I could.
My love affair with The Cure started 3 days after leaving home to Uni that 3 day later found me fighting to front central sweatsville for an extended intro of "A Reflection" leading into "A Forrest" and a fantastic night. Bye bye mum and dad, hello music. That was late 1980 and a few months later Faith came out and it was played on my crappy tape machine incessantly until it wore out. In fact it's one of the few albums that I've re-bought when I got a vinyl player then CD. All Cats Are Grey still gives me goosebumps and leaves me kind of hypnotised and lost in a happy place every time I hear it.
Dark Days of The Cure were the best. I love a heap of their more commercial later singles but I'm more of an album lover and the few you mention are the best for me. Later ones didn't work too well but Disintegration was a pretty damned good.
Don't know if you've ever seen the Youtube vid below but was a lovely find for me. "A Forrest" apparently was originally penned as "At Night". Lyrics were changed to what we now know and "At Night" morphed into something completely different on "Seventeen Seconds".

 

[Redcarmoose]

Hey there @Redcarmoose and thanks for that. I thought I was alone with this track and album so it's lovely to find a kindred soul. Standout track from their best album for me too and you describe it way better than I could.
My love affair with The Cure started 3 days after leaving home to Uni that 3 day later found me fighting to front central sweatsville for an extended intro of "A Reflection" leading into "A Forrest" and a fantastic night. Bye bye mum and dad, hello music. That was late 1980 and a few months later Faith came out and it was played on my crappy tape machine incessantly until it wore out. In fact it's one of the few albums that I've re-bought when I got a vinyl player then CD. All Cats Are Grey still gives me goosebumps and leaves me kind of hypnotised and lost in a happy place every time I hear it.
Dark Days of The Cure were the best. I love a heap of their more commercial later singles but I'm more of an album lover and the few you mention are the best for me. Later ones didn't work too well but Disintegration was a pretty damned good.
Don't know if you've ever seen the Youtube vid below but was a lovely find for me. "A Forrest" apparently was originally penned as "At Night". Lyrics were changed to what we now know and "At Night" morphed into something completely different on "Seventeen Seconds".

Quite familiar with that live performance, and I think it may be one of the earliest recorded? Well, it’s funny because there still seems there is mystery about those days, and of course many questions will always go unanswered. I was talking to an Australian friend about these early Cure albums yesterday. He actuallly played “A Forest” with his band.

If anything “A Forest” is very recognizable anyway you hear it. The first time I heard it was in a hallway of a shopping mall coming from a record store stereo. I didn’t know what the song was or who the band was but could never forget that intro.

Probably the mystery now (for me) is in the guitar tone. The album Faith and Seventeen Seconds almost sound like they were recorded with hollow-body electric guitars? To me the guitars sound robustly distinct and different than most electric guitars recorded? The other mystery is how or why those drum machine beats don’t sound boring? It must be the synchronized musicianship that surrounds the beats? Literally the most rudimentary electronic drum machines ever used, making Kraftwork sound like a live drummer, yet they hold up and remain a novelty today?

And the bass tone! I mean really..........has a bass guitar ever been more forward? Truly this music gets more different than it was, upon release.


Also note that it looks like Robert Smith is playing a Fender Mustang with an added center pick-up. So that live song must be right when A Forest was recorded....or soon after?

Wikipedia:
By the time the NME interviewed the band in October 1979 during their tour with Siouxsie and the Banshees, Smith was acknowledged as the principal writer of "almost all of the Cure's songs and lyrics", and stated that he was uncomfortable playing and singing songs that weren't his own.[35] Following his return from the Banshees' tour, Smith also composed most of the music for the album Seventeen Seconds using the Hammond, a drum machine and his trademark Top 20 Woolworth's guitar, during a home demo session in his parents' basement. Most of the lyrics had been written in one night in Newcastle.


It’s also noted as the moment Robert Smith took control of the band and became the major song writer for The Cure.

Wikipedia:
Smith wrote the lyrics and music for most of the record at his parents' home, on a Hammond organ with a built-in tape recorder. Interviewed in 2004, producer Mike Hedges does not recall any demo tracks, with the band generally playing the track in the studio before laying down a backing track to which overdubs were added.[2]





I’m simply guessing as that’s not a Woolworth guitar?

 

[bigshot]

Female Orbison. (not so fond of the pedal steel guitar player though.)

 

[Steve999]

This Nicole Atkins is really interesting. I'd never heard of her. She obviously has great command over her voice as an instrument and has a lot of feeling. I just listened to maybe ten songs by her. I really wanted to hear her not oversing and cut back on the vibrato and I wanted to feel like the power of her voice was not getting in the way of her expressing emotion. Her back-up bands seem to follow suit and way overplay and do some really klunky goofy things, like your pedal steel guitar player. In another version of that same song there is a pianist doing just really goofy things. I don't think she gets bands to match her talent. It's like when you hear a band do a cover and to make up for the fact that they can't get to the strong emotion of the original song through talent they way overplay in a hyper-dramatic way thinking that is how you get to the feeling. Well that's not what sittin' on the dock of the bay is about, if you know what I mean. Michael Bolton comes to mind as a serial offender. Listening to her various songs reminded me of when I got to speak to Betty Carter once and she said how Sara Vaughan's voice was actually so good it would get in the way of her singing as well as she could at times. It's kind of like someone with too much money so they don't know what direction to go with it.

So anyway I found this where she has just a calm pianist with her and she is not oversinging--there is just one crescendo to great effect, and she pulls way back on the vibrato, and she looks and sounds like she's really feeling what she's singing. She's got someone actually in mind, she's got her hooks around it. Of course she is her and she gets to sing however she wants to, but in my gut this is where I'd like to see her go stylistically.

Female Orbison. (not so fond of the pedal steel guitar player though.)

 

[Steve999]

One of the great voices of jazz singing one of my favorite songs with the support of the Count Basie orchestra.

Every note is a lingering work of art.

 

[Steve999]

And maybe my favorite all time jazz singer, Betty Carter. Not a note wasted. But Beautiful.

 

[bigshot]

I like Sarah Vaughn when she stays on the melody. She strays a bit far for me sometimes. My favorite female jazz singers are Fitzgerald (natch!), Dinah Washington and Kay Starr. Especially Kay Starr's Lamplighter sessions. Those are solid gold.

Nichole Atkins' hero is Mama Cass. If you realize that you know what she's going for. I went to a concert of hers and sat in the back. Before the show started the whole band came in through the back of the house and sat with us and chatted. She is really nice and very humble. And her voice is incredibly powerful when she lets loose. The only other singer I've heard in person that comes close is Bjork. (Well, and Birgit Nilsson...)

 

[castleofargh]

Female Orbison. (not so fond of the pedal steel guitar player though.)

not so fond of something, now that's a concept I can get behind .

starting around 0.46s there is that annoying crap coming full left that grabs my attention and IMO ruins the song. I don't know how to describe it, like "tch" sounds from some tweaked percussion of sort.
I bought the album right after hearing them on the Late Show and thinking they add something special. but of course the live stuff didn't have those annoying sounds. :'(

 

[bigshot]

There are a few things I don't like about that!

 

[Steve999]

@castleofargh, that totally freaked me out and I have to go to bed soon.

@bigshot, I was checking out some Kay Starr, and ran into this (I know it's not her best work but for a period piece it's pretty fascinating):

I like Sarah Vaughn when she stays on the melody. She strays a bit far for me sometimes. My favorite female jazz singers are Fitzgerald (natch!), Dinah Washington and Kay Starr. Especially Kay Starr's Lamplighter sessions. Those are solid gold.

Nichole Atkins' hero is Mama Cass. If you realize that you know what she's going for. I went to a concert of hers and sat in the back. Before the show started the whole band came in through the back of the house and sat with us and chatted. She is really nice and very humble. And her voice is incredibly powerful when she lets loose. The only other singer I've heard in person that comes close is Bjork. (Well, and Birgit Nilsson...)

 

[bigshot]

That isn't the soundtrack that goes with the cartoon. They've added the Kay Starr song to get around copyright flags.

 

[GearMe]